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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

In my regular life, I suffer from insomnia somewhere between zero and one times per year. Pregnancy, however, seems to have robbed me of this thing I call "regular life."

To me there is no greater tragedy than being in my favorite place in the world--bed--with nothing to keep me from my favorite activity--sleep--and finding myself staring at the ceiling for hours in boredom. How totally rude.

Tonight marks the fourth time in a week I have sought a change of venue in order to pin down the elusive sleep fairy. Tonight is the first time that the secondary location has failed to work. Now I had a hunger pang and had to get up for an extra meal. Dang it.

So while I wait for my nocturnal bowl of frosted flakes to work its magic, I will tell you of an interesting exchange I had with Boo Bear a few days ago.

On Wednesday we girls were riding somewhere in the car together, when from the backseat I heard this:

"You know last year, when I was in kindergarten, one day a boy kissed me while I was waiting in the car rider line."

She had my attention. I asked, "Did you want him to?"

"No. It made me feel yucky. These two boys were playing a game to see who could kiss the most girls."

In kindergarten.

To which I said, "Did you tell a teacher?"

"Yes, she said not to worry about it."

Sigh. Where exactly does one go with this conversation? I chose to use the remaining minute of our car ride to establish two things.

1: "Well, honey, the teacher is partly right. You can't always be in control of what other people do to you, all you can do is decide how you will respond to it. I hope nobody ever does anything to you that really does hurt you, but just know that you are always in charge of how you will let it bother you. And that is exactly why Jesus is there for us." Totally inadequate words, I know. But I couldn't come up with a better way to deal with the strong mother bear instinct that was welling up within me.

2: "And, honey? You know that six is way too young for you to be kissing boys, right?"

"Yes, mom. I didn't kiss him! He kissed me!"

"OK. Just wanted to be clear on that. You have years before you need to be thinking about kissing."

"Of course, mom."

Disturbing enough, right? Now fast forward two hours.

The whole family was home, as it was the day before Thanksgiving. The kids were outside catching bugs in the backyard when the doorbell rang. It was our 8 year old neighbor D, wanting to know if he could play with the kids. No problem, I said, they're out back catching bugs. He said, great, my mom said I could stay for an hour.

They all played outside for 35 minutes, then went upstairs to play. At one point I went to the kids' room to put away some clothes (and, I confess, to do a little eavesdropping). I found the door locked with Boo and D inside, playing princess rescue with the Little People Castle set. Hmm. Obviously I stipulated that doors need to be open whenever friends are in the house.

A few minutes later she was showing her friend something on her little laptop. I noticed they were sitting close together on the sofa, but was trying really hard to quiet my paranoia.

Then D left. At dinner a few minutes later, Boo remarked casually, "He asked me if he could kiss me. Then he asked if I would be his girlfriend. I said no, because I know not to."